Microsoft at Davos: Is Your Hair on Fire, Google?
November 2, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
Microsoft said at the January 2023 Davos, AI is the next big thing. The result? Google shifted into Code Red and delivered a wild and crazy demonstration of a deeply flawed AI system in February 2023. I think the phrase “Code Red” became associated to the state of panic within the comfy confines of Googzilla’s executive suites, real and virtual.
Sam AI-man made appearances speaking to anyone who would listen words like “billion dollar investment,” efficiency, and work processes. The result? Googzilla itself found out that whether Microsoft’s brilliant marketing of AI worked or not, the Softies had just demonstrated that it — not the Google — was a “leader”. The new Microsoft could create revenue and credibility problems for the Versailles of technology companies.
Therefore, the Google tried to try and be nimble and make the myth of engineering prowess into reality, not a CGI version of Camelot. The PR Camelot featured Google as the Big Dog in the AI world. After all, Google had done the protein thing, an achievement which made absolutely no sense to 99 percent of the earth’s population. Some asked, “What the heck is a protein folder?” I want a Google Waze service that shows me where traffic cameras are.
The Google executives apparently went to meetings with their hair on fire.
A group of Google executives in a meeting with their hair on fire after Microsoft’s Davos AI announcement. Google wanted teams to manifest AI prowess everywhere, lickity split. Google reorganized. Google probed Anthropic and one Googler invested in the company. Dr. Prabhakar Raghavan demonstrated peculiar communication skills.
I had these thoughts after I read “Google Didn’t Rush Bard Chatbot to Beat Microsoft, Executive Says.” So what was this Code Red thing? Why has Google — the quantum supremacy and global leader in online advertising and protein folding — be lagging behind Microsoft? What is it now? Oh, yeah. Almost a year, a reorganization of the Google’s smart software group, and one of Google’s own employees explaining that AI could have a negative impact on the world. Oh, yeah, that guy is one of the founders of Google’s DeepMind AI group. I won’t mention the Googler who thought his chatbot was alive and ended up with an opportunity to find his future elsewhere. Right. Code Red. I want to note Timnit Gebru and the stochastic parrot, the Jeff Dean lateral arabesque, and the significant investment in a competitor’s AI technology. Right. Standard operating procedure for an online advertising company with a fairly healthy self concept about its excellence and droit du seigneur.
The Bloomberg article reports which I am assuming is “real”, actual factual information:
A senior Google executive disputed suggestions that the company rushed to release its artificial intelligence-based chatbot Bard earlier this year to beat a similar offering from rival Microsoft Corp. Testifying in Google’s defense at the Justice Department’s antitrust trial against the search giant, Elizabeth Reid, a vice president of search, acknowledged that Bard gave “a wrong answer” during its public unveiling in February. But she rejected the contention by government lawyer David Dahlquist that Bard was “rushed” out after Microsoft announced it was integrating generative AI into its own Bing search engine.
The real news story pointed out:
Google’s public demonstration of Bard underwhelmed investors. In one instance, Bard was asked about new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope. The chatbot incorrectly stated the telescope was used to take the first pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system. While the Webb telescope was the first to photograph one particular planet outside the Earth’s solar system, NASA first photographed a so-called exoplanet in 2004. The mistake led to a sharp fall in Alphabet’s stock. “It’s a very subtle language difference,” Reid said in explaining the error in her testimony Wednesday. “The amount of effort to ensure that a paragraph is correct is quite a lot of work.” “The challenges of fact-checking are hard,” she added.
Yes, facts are hard in Hallucinationville? I think the concept I take away from this statement is that PR is easier than making technology work. But today Google and similar firms are caught in what I call a “close enough for horseshoes” mind set. Smart software, in my experience, is like my dear, departed mother’s not-quite-done pineapple upside down cakes. Yikes, those were a mess. I could eat the maraschino cherries but nothing else. The rest was deposited in the trash bin.
And where are the “experts” in smart search? Prabhakar? Danny? I wonder if they are embarrassed by their loss of their thick lustrous hair. I think some of it may have been singed after the outstanding Paris demonstration and subsequent Mountain View baloney festivals. Was Google behaving like a child frantically searching for his mom at the AI carnival? I suppose when one is swathed in entitlements, cashing huge paychecks, and obfuscating exactly how the money is extracted from advertisers, reality is distorted.
Net net: Microsoft at Davos caused Google’s February 2023 Paris presentation. That mad scramble has caused to conclude that talking about AI is a heck of a lot easier than delivering reliable, functional, and thought out products. Is it possible to deliver such products when one’s hair is on fire? Some data say, “Nope.”
Stephen E Arnold, November 2, 2023
Google Pays Apple to Be More Secure? Petulant, Parental, or Indifferent?
October 31, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
I am fascinated by the allegedly “real” information in this Fortune Magazine write up: “Google CEO Sundar Pichai Swears Under Oath That $26 Billion Payment to Device Makers Was Partly to Nudge Them to Make Security Upgrades and Other Improvements.”
As I read the article, this passage pokes me in the nose:
Pichai, the star witness in Google’s defense, testified Monday that Google’s payments to phone manufacturers and wireless phone companies were partly meant to nudge them into making costly security upgrades and other improvements to their devices, not just to ensure Google was the first search engine users encounter when they open their smartphones or computers. Google makes money when users click on advertisements that pop up in its searches and shares the revenue with Apple and other companies that make Google their default search engine.
First, I like the “star witness” characterization. It is good to know where the buck stops at the Alphabet Google YouTube et al enterprise fruit basket.
The driver and passengers shout to the kids, “Use this money to improve your security. If you need more, just call 1 800 P A Y O F F S. Thanks, MidJourney, you do money reasonably well. By the way, where did the cash come from?
Second, I like the notion of paying billions to nudge someone to do something. I know that getting action from DC lobbyists, hiring people from competitors, pushing out people who disagree with Google management, and buying clicks costs less than billions. In some cases, the fees are considerably lower. Some non US law enforcement entities collection several thousand dollars from wives who want to have their husbands killed by an Albanian or Mexican hit man. Billions does more than nudge. Billions means business.
Third, I liked the reminder that no ruling will result in 2023. Then once a ruling is revealed, “another trial will determine how to rein in its [the Google construct’s] market power.”
Several questions popped into my mind:
- Is the “nudge” thing serious? My dinobaby mind interprets the statement as either a bit of insider humor, a disconnect between the Googley world and most people’s everyday reality, or a bit dismissive. I can hear one of my high school science club member’s saying to a teacher perceived as dull normal, “You would not understand the real reason so I am pointing the finger at Plato’s philosophy.”
- The “billions” is the giveaway. That is more than the average pay-to-play shyster of Fiverr.com charges. Why such a premium For billions, I can think of several lobbying outfits who would do some pretty wild and crazy things for a couple of hundred million in cash.
- Why is the already glacier-like legal process moving slowly with the prospect of yet another trial to come? With a substantial footprint in search and online advertising, are some billions being used to create the world’s most effective brake on a legal process?
- Why is so much of the information redacted and otherwise difficult or almost impossible to review? I thought the idea of a public trial involving a publicly traded company in a democratic society was supposed to be done in the sunshine?
Fortune Magazine sees nothing amiss. I wonder if I am the only dinobaby wondering what’s beneath the surface of what seems to be a trial which is showing some indications of being quite Googley. I am not sure if that is a positive thing.
I also wonder why a large outfit like Apple needs to be nudged with Google billions? That strikes me as something worth thinking about. The fake Albanian and Mexican hitmen may learn something new by answering that question. Hey, Fortune Magazine, why not take another shot at covering this story?
Stephen E Arnold, October 31, 2023
Google Loves Up Search Engine Optimization
October 31, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
Alphabet, Google, YouTube is definitely a believer in search engine optimization or SEO. How do I know? Consider the reports that relay this allegedly accurate number: $26 billion. Yep, $26 billion paid out to other companies to buy click love.
“Google Paid a Whopping $26.3 Billion in 2021 to Be the Default Search Engine Everywhere” asserts:
Google obviously agrees and has paid a staggering amount to make sure it is the default: testimony in the trial revealed that Google spent a total of $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine in multiple browsers, phones, and platforms.
The article shares some napkin math and says:
Just to put that $26.3 billion in context: Alphabet, Google’s parent company, announced in its recent earnings report that Google Search ad business brought in about $44 billion over the last three months and about $165 billion in the last year. Its entire ad business — which also includes YouTube ads — made a bit under $90 billion in profit. This is all back-of-the-napkin math, but essentially, Google is giving up about 16 percent of its search revenue and about 29 percent of its profit to those distribution deals.
It appears that Google does its own big money SEO. It pays to be the search system and, therefore, is artificially boosted to be the winner. Yes, SEO, but not the penny ante silliness of an art history major working at a Google optimization company. The billions deliver the big school of fish: Advertisers.
Is this good or bad? From my point of view, Google is doing what good optimization wizards do: Maximize return and reduce risk. Big money deals facilitated some important milestones in the American economy; for example, the steel monopoly, the railroad that made Stanford the exemplar of integrity, and everyone’s friend with the jingle Luckies taste better.
Maybe money can buy happiness or $150 billion in revenue for those offering free online search? Thanks, Microsoft Bing.
Google is little more than a clever construct. What’s fascinating is that the baloney about Google search being better has a shelf life of more than 25 years. What’s troubling is that it has taken Google, the US legal system, and users a long time to think about the company’s mechanisms of control.
Perhaps it is helpful to think about Google’s entanglement with certain government activities? Perhaps some thinking about the data collection, retention, and mining capabilities of the company? Perhaps some analysis abut the use of YouTube to shape thinking or distort thinking about certain issues?
I love the Google. I have a Christmas card from a long gone Googler. That shows something. Nevertheless, the gravitational “force” of an outfit like Google seems so right. The company is the environment of online.
But 25 years of Google love? That’s a bit much. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 showed more awareness than the governmental officials beavering away in Washington, DC, today. Oh, I forgot. Many of those tireless workers have Google mouse pads and a Google T shirt to wear to a frisbee session at the reflecting pool.
Stephen E Arnold, October 31, 2023
Nice Work YouTube: Salacious Accident?
October 31, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
Oops. If this piece from Bang Premier is to be believed, “YouTube Accidentally Allows Users to Upload Unremovable Adult Content.” Of course YouTube doesn’t normally allow porn on the site. However, according to reporting by 404 Media, hidden tags enabled some users to upload it. Permanently. The write-up states:
“A user explained to the outlet: ‘The way the bug worked was by using something called a newline, which YouTube very rarely counts as an actual character. It’s basically what is written when you type the return key on your keyboard. By spamming millions of these characters in the videos tags, using a proxy, it would prevent visibility changes on the video, such as setting it from public to private, or deleting it all together. [I] initially discovered the bug by just messing around with new lines video settings. It’s been well known inside of the little YouTube community we have—not the porn one in [404 Media’s] article, that type of crap is vile and weird—that new lines could be used for getting certain things over the character limit, such as channel descriptions and sometimes names. I tried video descriptions titles and it didn’t work. But for video tags, it did.’”
When contacted, Google said it was working to fix the bug and to expel the content. Can it catch it all? Exciting stuff.
Cynthia Murrell, October 31, 2023
The GOOG and MSFT Tried to Be Pals… But
October 30, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
Here is an interesting tangent to the DOJ’s case against Google. Yahoo Finance shares reporting from Bloomberg in, “Microsoft-Google Peace Deal Broke Down Over Search Competition.” The two companies pledged to stop fighting like cats and dogs in 2016. Sadly, the peace would last but three short years, testified Microsoft’s Jonathan Tinter.
In a spirit of cooperation and profits for all, Microsoft and Google-parent Alphabet tried to work together. For example, in 2020 they made a deal for Microsoft’s Surface Duo: a Google search widget would appear on its main screen (instead of MS Bing) in exchange for running on the Android operating system. The device’s default browser, MS Edge, would still default to Bing. Seemed like a win-win. Alas, the Duo turned out to be a resounding flop. That disappointment was not the largest source of friction, however. We learn:
“In March 2020, Microsoft formally complained to Google that its Search Ads 360, which lets marketers manage advertising campaigns across multiple search engines, wasn’t keeping up with new features and ad types in Bing. … Tinter said that in response to Microsoft’s escalation, Google officially complained about a problem with the terms of Microsoft’s cloud program that barred participation of the Google Drive products — rival productivity software for word processing, email and spreadsheets. In response to questions by the Justice Department, Tinter said Microsoft had informally agreed to pay for Google to make the changes to SA360. ‘It was half a negotiating strategy,’ Tinter said. Harrison ‘said, ‘This is too expensive.’ I said, ‘Great let me pay for it.’’ The two companies eventually negotiated a resolution about cloud, but couldn’t resolve the problems with the search advertising tool, he said. As a result, nothing was ever signed on either issue, Tinter said. ‘We ultimately walked away and did not reach an agreement,’ he said. Microsoft and Google also let their peace deal expire in 2021.”
Oh well, at least they tried to get along, we suppose. We just love dances between killer robots with money at stake.
Cynthia Murrell, October 30, 2023
Google Giggles: Late October 2023 Edition
October 25, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
The Google Giggles is nothing more than items reported in the “real” news about the antics, foibles, and fancy dancing of the world’s most beloved online advertising system.
Googzilla gets a kick out of these antics. Thanks, MidJourney. You do nice but repetitive dinosaur illustrations.
Giggle 1: Liking sushi is not the same as sushi liking you. “The JFTC Opens an Investigation and Seeks Information from Third Parties Concerning the Suspected Violation of the Antimonopoly Act by Google LLC, Etc.” Now that’s a Googley headline from the government of Japan. Why? Many items are mentioned in the cited document; for example, mobile devices, the Google Play Store, and sharing of search advertising. Would our beloved Google exploit its position to its advantage? Japan wants to know more. Many people do because the public trial in the US is not exactly outputting public information in a comprehensive, unredacted way, is it?
Giggle 2: Just a minor change in the Internet. Google wants to protect content, respect privacy, and help out its users. Listen up, publishers, creators, and authors. “Google Chrome’s New IP Protection Will Hide Users’ IP Addresses” states:
As the traffic will be proxied through Google’s servers, it may make it difficult for security and fraud protection services to block DDoS attacks or detect invalid traffic. Furthermore, if one of Google’s proxy servers is compromised, the threat actor can see and manipulate the traffic going through it. To mitigate this, Google is considering requiring users of the feature to authenticate with the proxy, preventing proxies from linking web requests to particular accounts, and introducing rate-limiting to prevent DDoS attacks.
Hmmm. Can Google see the traffic, gather data, and make informed decisions? Would Google do that?
Giggle 3: A New Language. Google’s interpretation of privacy is very, very Googley. “When Is a Privacy Button Not a Privacy Button? When Google Runs It, Claims Lawsuit” explains via a quote from a legal document:
"Google had promised that by turning off this [saving a user’s activity] feature, users would stop Google from saving their web and app activity data, including their app-browsing histories," the fourth amended complaint [PDF] says. "Google’s promise was false."
When Google goes to court, Google seems to come out unscathed and able to continue its fine work. In this case, Google is simply creating its own language which I think could be called Googlegrok. One has to speak it to be truly Googley. Now what does “trust” mean?
Giggle 4: Inventing AI and Crawfishing from Responsibility. I read “AI Risk Must Be Treated As Seriously As Climate Crisis, Says Google DeepMind Chief.” What a hoot! The write up’s subtitle is amazing:
Demis Hassabis calls for grater regulation to quell existential fears over tech with above human levels of intelligence.
Does this Google posture suggest that the firm is not responsible for the problems it is creating and diffusing because “government” is not regulating a technology? Very clever. Perhaps a bit of self control is more appropriate? But I am no longer Googley. The characteristic goes away with age and the end of checks.
Giggle 5: A Dark Cloud. Google reported strong financial results. With online ads in Google search and YouTube.com, how could the firm fail its faithful? “Google Cloud Misses Revenue Estimates — And It’s Your Fault, Wanting Smaller Bills” reports that not all is gold in the financial results. I noted this statement:
Another concerning outcome for the Google cloud was that its $266 million operating income number was down from $395 million in the previous quarter – when revenue was $370 million lower.
Does this mean that the Google Cloud is an issue? In my lingo, “issue” means, “Is it time for the Google to do some clever market adaptation?” Google once was good at clever. Now? Hmmm.
Are you giggling? I am.
Stephen E Arnold, October 25, 2023
The Google Experience: Personnel Management and Being Fair
October 23, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb humanoid. No smart software required.
The Google has been busy explaining to those who are not Googley that it is nothing more than a simple online search engine. Heck, anyone can use another Web search system with just a click. Google is just delivering a service and doing good.
I believe this because I believe everything a big high-technology outfit says about the Internet. But there is one facet of this company I find fascinating; namely, it’s brilliant management of people or humanoids of a particular stripe.
The Backstory
Google employees staged a walkout in 2018, demanding a safer and fairer workplace for women when information about sexual discrimination and pay discrepancies leaked. Google punished the walkout organizers and other employees, but they succeed in ending the forced arbitration policy that required employees to settle disputes privately. Wired’s article digs into the details: “This Exec Is Forcing Google Into Its First Trial over Sexist Pay Discrimination.”
Google’s first pay discrimination case will be argued in New York. Google cloud unit executive Ulku Rowe alleges she was hired at a lower salary than her male co-workers. When she complained, she claims Google denied her promotions and demoted her. Rowe’s case exposed Google’s executive underbelly.
The case is also a direct result of the walkout:
“The costs and uncertainty of a trial combined with a fear of airing dirty laundry cause companies to settle most pay discrimination lawsuits, says Alex Colvin, dean of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Last year, the US government outlawed forced arbitration in sexual harassment and sexual assault cases, but half of US employers still mandate it for other disputes. Rowe would not be scheduled to have her day in court if the walkout had not forced Google to end the practice. “I think that’s a good illustration of why there’s still a push to extend that law to other kinds of cases, including other kinds of gender discrimination,” Colvin says.”
The Outcome
“Google Ordered to Pay $1 Million to Female Exec Who Sued over Gender Discrimination” reported:
A New York jury on Friday decided that Google did commit gender-based discrimination, and now owes Rowe a combined $1.15 million for punitive damages and the pain and suffering it caused. Rowe had 23 years of experience when she started at Google in 2017, and the lawsuit claims she was lowballed at hiring to place her at a level that paid significantly less than what men were being offered.
Observation
It appears that the Googley methods at the Google are neither understood nor appreciated by some people.
Whitney Grace, October 23, 2023
True or False: Does Google Cha-Cha with Search Results?
October 19, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Megan Gray is a former Federal Trade Commission employee, former DuckDuckGo executive, and is experienced fighting Google’s legal team. Her background provides key insights into Google’s current antitrust case and how Alphabet Inc. is trying to wring more money from consumers. Gray discusses her case observations in Wired’s article: “How Google Alters Search Queries To Get At Your Wallet.”
Google overhauled its SERP algorithm with “semantic matching” that returned results with synonyms and NLP text phrasing. The overhaul also added more commercial results to entice consumers to buy more stuff. Google’s ten organic links are a lie, because the search engine alters queries to be more shopping oriented. Google works their deviousness like this:
“Say you search for “children’s clothing.” Google converts it, without your knowledge, to a search for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear,” making a behind-the-scenes substitution of your actual query with a different query that just happens to generate more money for the company, and will generate results you weren’t searching for at all. It’s not possible for you to opt out of the substitution. If you don’t get the results you want, and you try to refine your query, you are wasting your time. This is a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape.”
All these alternations are to raise Google’s ad profit margins. Users and advertisers are harmed but they aren’t aware of it because Google’s manipulations are imperceptible. Google’s search query manipulations are black hat genius because it’s different from the usual Internet scams:
“Most scams follow an elementary bait-and-switch technique, where the scoundrel lures you in with attractive bait and then, at the right time, switches to a different option. But Google “innovated” by reversing the scam, first switching your query, then letting you believe you were getting the best search engine results. This is a magic trick that Google could only pull off after monopolizing the search engine market, giving consumers the false impression that it is incomparably great, only because you’ve grown so accustomed to it. “
This won’t be the end of Google lawsuits nor the end of query manipulation. For now, only Google knows what Google does.
Whitney Grace, October 19, 2023
Recent Googlies: The We-Care-about -Your-Experience Outfit
October 18, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I flipped through some recent items from my newsfeed and noted several about everyone’s favorite online advertising platform. Herewith is my selection for today:
ITEM 1. Boing Boing, “Google Reportedly Blocking Benchmarking Apps on Pixel 8 Phones.” If the mobile devices were fast — what the GenX and younger folks call “performant” (weird word, right?) — wouldn’t the world’s largest online ad service make speed test software and its results widely available? If not, perhaps the mobile devices are digital turtles?
Hey, kids. I just want to be your friend. We can play hide and seek. We can share experiences. You know that I do care about your experiences. Don’t run away, please. I want to be sticky. Thanks, MidJourney, you have a knack for dinosaur art. Boy that creature looks familiar.
ITEM 2. The Next Web, “Google to Pay €3.2M Yearly Fee to German News Publishers.” If Google traffic and its benefits were so wonderful, why would the Google pay publishers? Hmmm.
ITEM 3. The Verge (yep, the green weird logo outfit), “YouTube Is the Latest Large Platform to Face EU Scrutiny Regarding the War in Israel.” Why is the EU so darned concerned about an online advertising company which still sells wonderful Google Glass, expresses much interest in a user’s experience, and some fondness for synthetic data? Trust? Failure to filter certain types of information? A reputation for outstanding business policies?
ITEM 4. Slashdot quoted a document spotted by the Verge (see ITEM 3) which includes this statement: “… Google rejects state and federal attempts at requjiring platforms to verify the age of users.” Google cares about “user experience” too much to fool with administrative and compliance functions.
ITEM 5. The BBC reports in “Google Boss: AI Too Important Not to Get Right.” The tie up between Cambridge University and Google is similar to the link between MIT and IBM. One omission in the fluff piece: No definition of “right.”
ITEM 6. Arstechnica reports that Google has annoyed the estimable New York Times. Google, it seems, is using is legal brigades to do some Fancy Dancing at the antitrust trial. Access to public trial exhibits has been noted. Plus, requests from the New York Times are being ignored. Is the Google above the law? What does “public” mean?
Yep, Google googlies.
Stephen E Arnold, October 18, 2023
Teens Watching Video? What about TikTok?
October 16, 2023
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Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
What an odd little report about an odd little survey. Google wants to be the new everything, including the alternative to Netflix maybe? My thought is that the Google is doing some search engine optimization.
Two young people ponder one of life’s greatest questions, “Do we tell them we watch more YouTube than TikTok?” Thanks, MidJourney. Keep sliding down the gradient.
When a person searches for Netflix, by golly, Google is going to show up: In the search results, the images, and next to any information about Netflix. Google wants, it seems to me, to become Quantumly Supreme in the Netflix “space.”
”YouTube Passes Netflix As Top Video Source for Teens” reports:
Teenagers in the United States say they watch more video on YouTube than Netflix, according to a new survey from investment bank Piper Sandler.
My question: What about TikTok? The “leading investment bank” may not have done Google a big favor. Consider this: The report from a “bank” called Piper Sandler is available at this link. TikTok does warrant a mention toward the tail end of the “leading investment bank’s” online summary:
The iPhone continues to reign as 87% of teens own one and 88% expect the iPhone to be their next mobile device. TikTok improved by 80 bps [basis points] compared to spring 2023 as the favorite social platform among teens along with Snap Inc. ranking second and Instagram ranking third.
Interesting. And the Android device? What about the viewing of TikTok videos compared to consumption of YouTube and Netflix?
For a leading investment bank in the data capital of Minnesota, the omission of the TikTok to YouTube comparison strikes me as peculiar. In 2021, TikTok overtook YouTube in minutes viewed, according to the BBC. It is 2023, how is the YouTube TikTok battle going?
Obviously something is missing in this shaped data report. That something is TikTok and its impact on what many consume and how they obtain information.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2023
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